THE LARGEST HOT SPRINGS IN THE WORLD

We are still on caravan. We left Lander, Wyoming and wound through the dramatic Wind River Canyon with its high rock cliffs above the road. Signs along the road identified the dates of different rock strata going back as far as 3 billion years ago. Rolling green hills led us into the town of Shoshoni for a stop at an old-fashioned ice cream parlor where I had a black-and-white sundae that I haven’t had since I was a kid. Across from where we parked was an adobe two-room jail dating from 1907.

The next stop was an RV resort in Thermopolis with its own hot spring fed mineral pool, part of the largest hot springs in the world. In 1918, while drilling for an oil well, the hot springs was hit instead. The spring comes out of the ground at 136 degrees and is cooled down to 104 degrees for the large swimming pool. The spring has built up a smoothly-coated colored cone eight feet high from the mineral deposits. It was wonderful to soak in the mineral waters and we changed our RV park reservations in this town to come back to this same park in August.

While at Thermopolis, several of us took a short side trip to Digby, population 47. Someone remarked that with our group, we enlarged the population by 25%. The object of the trip was to go to Butch’s bar and grill for the ‘world’s largest hamburgers’. Afterwards we took a drive through the surrounding hills and saw deer and buffalo. Then we stopped at the state park that has the world’s largest mineral pool. The mineral waters here and flowed over a small drop to make a mix of yellows, browns, pinks before flowing into the river. It was as beautiful as the hot mineral pools in Yellowstone.

Continuing on towards Gillette, we passed many pronghorn antelope grazing in the fields. Of course, we had to stop for cinnamon rolls at a small café in Ten Sleep. (Do you get the idea that this group likes to eat?) From there, we could see red hills to rival Sedona, AZ. Here we wound through Ten Sleep Canyon to Powder River Pass at an elevation of 9686 feet. The road wound back and forth and a rushing stream paralleled it but the climb was not that noticeable. Shasta Daisies lined the roadside. Patches of snow were by the road but the road was clear. It started to snow as we drove. We passed even more deer and pronghorn antelope plus moose coming into Gillette and our Alfa convention.